It is commonly voiced within the circles of American
Confessional Presbyterianism that Old Princeton ended when they carried BB Warfield
out of Miller Chapel.
Miller Chapel is located on the grounds of Princeton Seminary
– once the hallmark and standard of conservative and confessional American Presbyterianism.
The seminary campus is adjacent to and virtually indistinguishable from the Ivy
League University and their histories are certainly intertwined as well.
BB Warfield the so-called 'Lion of Princeton' died in 1921and
is laid in the historic cemetery on the edge of town – in which one can find
not only numerous Presbyterians and Calvinists of repute but others associated
with the university. Names like Jonathan Edwards, Aaron Burr, George Kennan,
John Witherspoon, and president Grover Cleveland are located on the gravestones
of that solemn and rather scenic place.
As a seat of power and influence, Princeton retains its
standing and the seminary is still a place of renown within Mainline Christian
circles. But for the Confessionalists, the 1920's marked its demise. The seeds
were planted long before and as I have argued the so-called 'stalwarts', men
like the Hodges and Warfield and found to be somewhat wanting in terms of their
principled conservatism and guardianship of the Confessional legacy.
Good men can disagree over such questions but all would agree
that by the 1920's theological liberalism had become dominant and this would
lead to J Gresham Machen's seminal 'Christianity and Liberalism' in 1923, his
1929 departure (with several of the faculty) to form Westminster Seminary, and
finally the ejection of the strict Confessionalists who went on in 1936 to form
what would become the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).
Looking back, many have viewed the death of Warfield as
something of a milestone or watershed. To some extent that is true – for within
a decade the people who stood with Warfield and his ideas were more or less
driven out.
And so a century later we're seeing something of a cultural
revolution in which old names are being crossed out, monuments taken down and
so forth. What's the issue here? Samuel Miller (1769-1850) as a professor at
the seminary defended slavery and apparently employed slaves as well. And as
such, the chapel is being renamed 'Seminary Chapel'.
Once again there's a degree of absurdity to all of this – an
attempt to erase history. But as I wrote with regard to the Witherspoon
monument on the university campus – the protestors want the status and the
power, they're not true revolutionaries. If all that Princeton was and is
generates a degree of revulsion and protest – I can certainly respect that.
Don't go there. Repudiate it.
But to go there and then pretend that it is something other
than what it is, and to then take or appropriate all the power, standing, and
prestige associated with the institution even while ignoring or attempting to
erase the very past that gave the institution that status – is ridiculous and
worthy of ridicule.
The current administration, faculty, and student body reject
all that the founders of that institution stood for in terms of their theology
and sociology. But they don't reject the social status and prestige of
Princeton and what that name means – especially when you get to claim status among
the alumni. It's hypocrisy at best, and self-delusion at worst.
That said, there's a part of me that is forced to chuckle as
the romantics of our day tear out their hair in lamentation – breaking forth in
elegy for all that Princeton (university and seminary) once was.
The truth is – there's not much to celebrate. It was always
flawed – even at its foundations.
And as much as some might decry this re-writing of history
and historical transformation, it's actually nothing new. Look at the remnants
of Muslim Spain and how their buildings were transformed into Catholic churches
– or look at a place like Ravenna and the interaction between Arian and
Orthodox histories and architecture.
How many times did the monastic orders of the Middle Ages
fall into corruption only to be superseded by a new order with new buildings
and the like? These patterns are old and repeating and sober
Biblically-informed reflection often leads one to dismiss the entire debate out
of hand – sometimes one side can garner a bit more sympathy, but only a little.
The tale of institutions wed to power is always a tale of corruption and decay
– Princeton Seminary is no different and not a few of its spin-offs and
successors would do well to take note and learn from history.
See also:
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-witherspoon-princeton-controversy.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2017/06/princeton-seminary-twenty-years-of.html
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2019/12/calvinist-narratives-19th-century.html
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